Installation Tips for Pavers with Snow Melt Systems

Is going live and here we are. Hello and thank you for joining us today for our monthly webinar entitled Installation Tips for Pavers with our Snow Melting Systems. My name is Carrie Lynn, I'm a National Accounts Manager at WarmlyYours and joining me here today is my colleague, a member of our WarmlyYours tech support team, or as we like to call it, the Merlo Army. Say hello, Scott. Hello, everybody. Thanks for joining us today.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask by pressing the Ask a Question button at the bottom of the screen or simply typing in the sidebar chat. We have a couple of people who submitted questions ahead of time, so we'll try to touch on them throughout the presentation or certainly address them at the end of the webinar. This will reinforce what might have been shared and perhaps make it a better learning experience for everyone.

So what's going to be covered today in our webinar, Scott? Well, give me one second because I want to make sure that we're broadcasting live to our Facebook audience. We're live and in living color, that's for sure. While he's doing that, I can go ahead and keep us on track with just our timeline. We're looking to keep this under an hour today, but we're going to be talking about our snow melt system, giving an example of a project that we did locally here with a walkway project, going over some installation steps, and then last but not least, we're going to talk a bit about our controls. So without further ado, let's jump right in and get started.

There are different types of radiant heating products that we offer here at WarmlyYours. What you're looking at is some of the green stuff for our outdoor applications. We have our loose snow melt cable and our snow melting mat, again for outdoor applications. The outdoor systems are designed to be embedded in concrete, asphalt, or under pavers. They are capable of evenly heating the surface of your project to melt snow and ice from driveways, walkways, sidewalks, and more. With the right combination of sensors and controls, they can also be designed to turn on automatically.

Now, I know oftentimes on the sales side of things, and I'm sure in tech you get this question too, Scott, but I get asked, can it be installed under gravel? And what say you? Gravel, no. First of all, it doesn't comply with the requirements of the National Electric Code. Also, gravel can wear away over time. If you've ever driven down a gravel driveway that's five or ten years old, you'll see that it's rutted where the wheels are going. That's exactly the reason why you can't put electric heating cable under that. Eventually, after time, those ruts get deeper and deeper until finally, you're driving on the cable itself.

So, moving on to our focus of the day, when installing our snowmelt system for pavers, you can use either our snowmelt cables or mats. You simply spool out our loose cable for areas with odd angles like diagonal spaces or circular designs, or for stairs—areas that would call for a little more flexibility. For most larger or straightforward areas like driveways or walkways, or some porches, we recommend using our mats. The mats may be a little higher on the price point, but they're pre-spaced for you at a three-inch spacing, so they can really work well for even coverage and a smooth install.

Just coming from the sales side of things, I wanted to note the cost of labor on the front end or the back end; it's something to consider when comparing the two. The labor of the install of the cable as opposed to that of the mats is noteworthy. Generally, we advise you not to exceed a thickness of two and a half inches when it comes to the pavers you use in your project. You'll want to keep that in mind. The thicker you go with the pavers, the longer it may take to heat.

Scott, do you have some insight you might want to share with us on the technical side? Yes, we recommend 2.5 inches because we know it works well. It's not too thick to keep it from melting, and it's not too thin to make it unstable. So, a two and a half inch maximum is a good temperature. If you go to 2.6 or 2.75 inch depth, the system's not going to completely fail, but it will start becoming less responsive, making that surface cooler and cooler. There are a lot of things that affect the temperature of the final product, and that is the spacing of the wire. The further the wires are apart, the less watts per square foot you have; the closer the wires are together, the more watts per square foot you have.

The heat only travels about an inch and a half to two inches from the cable itself. If you start getting your pavers being four, five, or six inches thick, all of a sudden now the heat's not going to get to the top surface because the cable is simply too far away from the surface to warm it. That's the reason why we suggest that 2.5 inches will give you good results. As the thickness increases, your results may vary and will probably get a little poorer, but it doesn't mean it will fail.

If you're installing with pavers on top of existing concrete, we have a new product available for use with our snow melting cables. It's called the Snow Melt Embeddable Attachment Grid for pavers and existing concrete. We want to make sure we're being specific, so you know exactly what you can use it for. It's basically a framework to attach those cables with zip or cable ties to help maintain the proper spacing, as Scott was talking about. It's a three-foot wide roll that's 50 feet long with a one-inch by one-inch square grid, allowing for quick cable installation. It's lightweight, durable, and has a high degree of bi-directional expansion.

Can you share with us what that means, Scott, the bi-directional expansion? That means when you get it in place, you can't pull it apart very well in either direction. There are different grades of this material; some are stronger in one direction than they are in the other. This has the same strength in both directions. If you tie it down in the four spots, where the beginning and the end are, and then every so often as you put it down, it's going to give you a fairly rigid product to tie the cables to.

Earlier, you referred to the price difference between the cable and the mat as opposed to loose cable. When you're dealing with loose cable, you're going to set this stuff out, manually route the cable at three-inch or four-inch spacing, and then tie it down with tie wraps. So, it's going to be more time-consuming than the product that comes already spaced for you on the rolls. Just keep that in mind. You are going to save some money up front on the cost, and if you don't have high labor costs, then cable is a great solution to save some money. It takes a little bit longer to install, but it's a little bit cheaper.

This grid is really helpful on stairs for pre-existing concrete stairs. Normally, you install the heat cable on top of the stairs and then cover it with a cap or with a paver or limestone cap, something that's an inch or two thick. This gives you something to tie it down. You attach this to the stair or ramp, and then you tie the cable to it. It gives you something to attach the cable to because otherwise, you can't just place the cable on the stairs and hope it stays there; it's just going to fall off.

Now, I know our focus is not asphalt today, but I'm just playing advocate here. Scott, can we install this with asphalt? No, it's not temperature rated to be installed in asphalt. Our product, the much better design, is the cable on mesh that's already there because you can make it into panels and put it down there. So, this product wouldn't really be used for asphalt because you don't have the time to attach the cable to it and get it in place while the asphalt truck is there. You want to do that with the mats.

Cross sections can be pretty helpful to picture exactly how to lay out your projects. Here, you see if you're installing your pavers, you're going to start with four to eight inches of crushed gravel for a good base layer. You'll lay out your frame of the attachment grid, fix the cable to the attachment grid, and then finish with your sand or mortar before applying your pavers. Again, you'll want to make sure that those pavers are no thicker than 2.5 inches.

Before we leave this one, I would like to make a point that Ivan asked if it can be applied on exterior ramps and tops of stair landings. Yes, hopefully, we answered your question on how that would be done. You would attach this down to the existing surface and then use this to tie that off too.

So, moving right along, there was a local project a customer did here in Chicago, and we have some great pictures where there was some under-paver application installed. Were you at this project, Scott? I was not, no. Okay, well, we're going to take a look together here at the project overview and what was involved.

This looks like one of our electrical overviews. It's pretty much what you get when you receive your design back from us along with your quotation. Even when you purchase your materials, this would be in the boxes along with your installation instructions. It shows you exactly what you're using for your project, the type of system, the dimensions, and the area square footage overview of your project. It even includes the power requirements.

Here, this project has a total of 75 amps drawn, and you can see the voltage and even the operating costs. With this information, your electrician, or if you are the electrician, can start buying the GfEP circuit breakers for the control, that sort of thing. Scott, for outdoor heating, what do our viewers need to keep in mind when it comes to the GFCI circuit breakers versus the GFI or the regular breakers?

The terminology that a lot of people who have never done this before say, "Okay, I have GFCI breakers for this." Well, GFCI breakers are for indoor applications. GFCI breakers, which are 30 milliamp trip instead of 5 milliamp trip, are for outdoors. They're ground fault equipment protection or ground fault protection for equipment. You'll see it as GFE or GFE; they're interchangeable. If you look here at the required breakers, you can see that there's a breaker specified for each cable that was done in the install.

You want to keep each cable on a separate breaker because if there's ever a problem with one cable—let's say somebody drops a wheelbarrow on it or damages the wire with a rake or shovel—that would trip one breaker, but the rest of your system would work. That's why you don't put it all on one giant breaker. If you have a problem in one of the mats, the whole system will shut down, and you don't want that. That's why you put them on individual breakers.

You can deal with a system that's compromised, but dealing with a system that doesn't work is a whole different thing. Please note that you will need GfEP breakers, and one of the breakers specified here is a non-GFI control circuit. That's the 120-volt power supplying the controller, which needs this 120 volts so it can function and turn the system on and off. If you have any questions about breakers, feel free to give us a call, but GfEP is what's required for outdoors, and GfEP is not the same as GFCI.

Moving on to the SmartPlan for the walkway, we wanted to show you what that installation plan is going to look like. This is what they got for this project. It looks like they had some nice runs here. We used some mats, and then actually in an area on the right, you can see there in red, we had some stairs involved. It's definitely a nice looking project. I love our design team; they literally work on these plans day and night so you don't have to do any guesswork in the field.

You can double-check dimensions and all the electrical requirements ahead of time. What they essentially use is that list of products from our catalogs. When someone sends us a plan, our designers create designs with prefabricated rolls. Why do we have the rolls already made? Because you can place your order right away. We don't do custom lengths; we literally take stock sizes, send them out to you with a custom design.

That way, you can double-check your work and share any details that may change, like dimensions, and get a new drawing if necessary all prior to starting your project. You want to know ahead what products to purchase and what sizes best fit your install. Typically in the design, you'll see how many rolls, the name of the job, amperage, wattage, voltage, and all kinds of good info there, including circuit breakers needed.

We definitely stand by the belief that those smart plans are the way to go. You don't have to try and figure out most of those job details; our team does the plan for you. Now, Scott, I just want to take a moment and shift our focus to the stairs on the right side of the plan. As a member of our tech support team, I'm sure there are some things that are helpful to consider regarding stair designs, like handrails and helpful measurements to provide when getting a plan. Can you walk us through that?

If this is your first time doing one of these jobs, don't try to figure it out yourself. Just send us a drawing, and our sales reps like Carrie Lynn will take this drawing and get it to our engineers, who will design a product that fits. The installation time obviously will vary by the size of the job. I can't tell you what the per square foot time is, but we do have videos online on our website at warmlyyours.com where you can watch and get an idea of how time elapses.

The lead time is if you say, "Hey, I like this drawing," these products are going to be in stock, and we'll ship them to you the day you order, nine times out of ten. When doing stairs, you need to pay special attention to a few things. We need to know the width of the stair, the depth of the tread, which is the part you step on, and the height of the riser, which is the height from the top of one stair to the top of the next stair.

Once we know that, it will tell us how many runs of those cables will fit in there. When the product is installed in the ground, it's really only getting cold temperatures from above. However, with stairs, especially in climates like Chicago, you're getting cold air from the sides, top, and if you have a bullnose or an overhang on your stair, you're also getting cold air from below.

When designing for stairs, you want to minimize your bullnose or overhangs. The further away the cable is from the front of that stair, the less it's going to melt. If you don't do that, the heat only radiates about an inch and a half laterally from the cable. You will see a line frozen at a certain point on the overhang. Also, make sure we get your measurements correct so we can get the right number of runs of cable in your step to maximize the watts per square foot.

You also don't want to come in later and start drilling for handrails because if you start drilling for handrails, you're going to hit the cable. If you know that your handrails are going to be on this step, this step, and this step, then mark that location so we can design around it. The best thing is to pre-sleeve it, which means you'll cut a hole and then work around that hole, coming back later to put the handrail down into that hole.

Once you receive your system, you'll want to make sure that you test your product every step of the way—before, during, and after your installation. You'll be using a mega ohms meter to ensure your project is installed properly and that you're getting a working product. Absolutely test before the install. I encourage all our customers to test it as soon as they receive the product. Our team tests it before it leaves the warehouse, but it's always great to double-check.

Make sure you have everything you need to eliminate any element of surprise. You don't want any last-minute exchanges before your install. That's why I'm here as your sales rep, but make sure you take every precaution ahead of time by using that Mega Ohm meter. It's not a regular digital ohms meter like we generally recommend for our indoor projects. With this, you're ensuring that you're testing it within the margin listed on the product label that you receive.

The Mega meter is an insulation tester, essentially. It tests the insulation around the wire throughout its entire length, ensuring that the wires do not touch anywhere down the line. It shoots 500 volts down the wire to see if it'll jump to the other wires. Your digital ohmmeter at home only has nine or six volts, which sometimes isn't enough to jump and make that spark go across. This tests the insulation of each individual wire to ensure that the installation is intact the entire length of the cable.

It's very important that you use this. One of the things that's really important when you do this is to realize that you're going to need an electrician there. The electrician is going to have to install conduit, and if you look at our installation plans, we'll show you where junction boxes are. If you look closely, you'll see a circle with a number, which tells you what the number of that mat is or that mesh on the plan.

Next to that, you'll see a triangle, which is the starting point of the heating product, and there's a 20-foot cold lead attached there. At the end is a square, which is just an end cap where the wires are all terminated. If you look above the three, just a little bit above and to the right, you'll see a circle with a JL in it. That's a junction box large enough to accommodate the cold leads, which are only 20 feet long.

These cold leads are designed to get from the product to the junction box, where the electrician makes the connections. The electrician supplies their own wiring to get from that box to the house or garage. These cold leads are only designed to get into that junction box. Make sure that the power is being shown on the correct side because if we take a look at that JL, the power may be coming from below number three instead of on top.

Each one of those places where the non-heating lead goes from the walkway over to the junction box must be in conduit. You can't just run the wire out the side, across the yard, and into a box; it has to be done with conduit. The person in charge of conduit at your job is going to be the electrician. You want the electrician there ahead of time before you install this product to ensure that the conduits are all lined up where they need to be and that he's dug